have offered him a favorable chance of getting off altogether; to kill him, on the contrary, when he was trying to escape, was quite lawful. The attempt at flight, at which I seemed to connive, was only a plan concerted between the captain and me, and the prisoner fell into the snare."
"But why has your captain acted in such a way to a man with whom he had formerly such intimate relations?"
"Ah! that's quite another thing!" replied Juanito. "Before sending Verduzco to a better world, my captain charged me to confess my prisoner. Here is what he told me, and which I will tell only to you, or to those who will give me a piastre for the information. Counting upon the influence which he had in high places, Verduzco engaged to procure for the captain an acting order as commander of the first convoy which left Mexico, the agreement being that he was to allow the conducta to be pillaged on its march, and that afterward the proceeds should be shared between them. Don Blas accepted these conditions; but I must say in his favor that he seemed to have repented of the bargain he had made with the bandit. Now, you know what happened to the convoy; but the best of the joke is, that the successful coup was made by another band than that of Verduzco's, who had not reckoned on any thing of the kind. While the bravo was waiting for the conducta beyond Hoya, another body of robbers, better informed, met it before it reached that place. It was by these wretches that the captain was wounded. He fancied that Verduzco had betrayed him, and it was on that account that I received the order to seize the first opportunity that offered to blow the ruffian's brains out."
